On Wednesday, a New York state senator’s seminar on gang violence in his district was interrupted by the sound of gunshots. Looking out the window, state Sen. Jesse Hamilton witnessed the death of a young man who had been shot multiple times.

DNAinfo.com reported Thursday that Hamilton recorded an emotional video after watching the man die. He then posted it to Facebook in an effort to call attention to the violence his community experiences all too frequently.

“We see this young man literally fatally shot, walking, trying to get away,” Hamilton told DNAinfo.

The 28-year-old victim — who has not been identified — collapsed on the sidewalk with blood pouring from his chest, shoulder and mouth.

“It was unreal,” Hamilton said. “I never saw a guy’s eyes roll up in the back of his head and die right in front of me.”

In the Facebook video, Hamilton spoke to the camera as chaos roiled around him.

“I’m here at Hamilton House,” he said, “and as we were having a stakeholders’ meeting, a young man was shot right in front of the building where we were having the stakeholders’ meeting.”

“This don’t make no sense,” a clearly distraught woman wailed off camera.

“This is unreal,” Hamilton continued. “I’ve never seen a young man actually shot and died right before my eyes. It’s been 10 minutes and there’s no ambulance!”

When the ambulance did arrive, Hamilton said, “Had they got here earlier, it could have been the difference between life and death.”

About the Author

David Ferguson is an editor at Raw Story. He was previously writer and radio producer in Athens, Georgia, hosting two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and blogging at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.